Dont let anybody ever hold you back. You know, you are just one of those people i watched for many, many years. Im not trying to flatter you, just honestly i begin to see people now that i have respect for because you were 8lite a ls governor, a leader at the epa, a leader all of your life. I ran into senator lugar the other day with sam nine on the issue of trying to read of the world of some of these weapons. I saw senator bob kerrey a couple of months ago. I dont know about you but when i see these folks that are bigger than life that acted out of love for their country rather than their, i have to Say Something. First of all let me say i am really impressed by your book because it is very personal, insightful and very clear on the kind of things you think are at the bottom of the challenges as a country and i wanted to ask you you talk about to pass. Do you want to get into that a little bit of . Guest i am basically a populace and i can understand that troubles because thats where i grew up. If the wind blew the wrong way people found themselves in trouble. But there is negative populism which is not something i appreciate at all. Sometimes it is a blame game or a quick fix. There isnt much of an element of hate. We have to also pick ourselves up. Theres an element of responsibility to ourselves and our family. And so, as a positive populist, i can understand the problems. But one was a diss somebody elses fault, you get ripped off and i am here to fix everything in the snap of a finger versus me a the only time in my life i think that i was never a boring candidate because i didnt say make wild promises. You know, its interesting. Being governor was a disadvantage. I wasnt willing to do things to get the attention. And this was a time where the crazier stuff you get the more you got on television, the more people liked it, totally bizar bizarre. Host its just not crazy. Guest when i am elected i will tear up the deal. What do you think, we have to see how it is. We cant predict the future. And it wasnt just out of donald trump. There were a lot of candidates doing this. You have to solve problems for everybody. And im not sure that in some respects it was a disadvantage because i dont want to make false promises. All we have is the reputation. So, the negative path was sort of down and woe is me and all that and i feel for these people. But there is no quick fix. This is something we will face into the future particularly with the digital revolution coming. The number one occupation the number one occupation are drivers with the creation of autonomous vehicles, they are not going to be driving so what are we going to do . If we think that we are torn apart today, wait until these folks are taken out of their jobs. Guest host you talk in the book about donald trump won and we should learn something positive from that. They were two of the same claim, the frustrated comedy angry and they didnt care whether the person they were supporting what to do whawould do what they sai. All they cared about is they said they were going to do something. Do you think Congress Learned this lesson that they were so frustrated with . Usurped, what do we do . Guest we gerrymandered which we have always done, but then people have gone out and sought the information that reinforced their views and shut out the information that they can do that. Now if you are a republican and a safe district you have to watch a primary from the right, republican of you are a democrat, so the congress is going like this and by the way, i think people gave up bowling and took up watching cable television. And now they are very impatient and demanding of the representatives and compromises the worst thing you could ever do. Saying something nice about donald trump if he were a democrat or nice about barack obama if you are republican, but is instead for so we have a polarization, and i think its a big problem. That is going to be the challenge out to get people out of the comfort zone willing to move beyond that. Guest it isnt just a divided congress she was afraid there would be a riot fighting with one another about politics. One of my friends told me he could talk to his father about politics. And he was telling me the other day all we do this shout at each other and i dont even go there anymore. We know the families are fighting. You im grand somebody on facebook if they Say Something you dont like. I think that there are things that pull us together and i will give you what i think a couple of them are. One is this drug problem. The Drug Enforcement agency told me that the only way to win this is education starting very young and all the way through. We ought to have groups of the neighborhoods that work to spread this message to young people. I believe in mentoring programs, the most powerful thing to give kids confidence. Thats not republican or democrat. Its a human issue or somebody that lives in your neighborhood, thats lost a spouse of 60 years, we all have to pitch in and help a person like that as we begin to Work Together to solve these things in the neighborhood we have to learn to communicate and then we can send a message up to the leaders. I thought that this was fascinating. He said if you think about the united airlines, all of us have sent a message, all of us who fly on airplanes have sent a message to the company we are not going to put up with this. We have to get our citizens together instead of fighting and up until the politicians to knock it off but this is the unwinding of a problem that has been happening for i think a couple decades. Host this is what we have to support. Guest it brought republicans and democrats together and theres concerns about the cuts to the nih we are all concerned about. I thought some of the interviews i had a friend that came he here. Not a negative we just hate to somebody else. They tell you why they need a little practice. When do we want it come after peer review. Thats going to get a whole lot of people out on the street and afraid. There is a recent poll from harvard. The thing i found surprising. That is what we needed to do. But in saying that, only 21 wanted anything to do with politics. Here is what i can be part of and in being part of that, they will be able to vote today to develop friendship and communication and we argue and we become buddies and then we laugh at all this stuff on the other side and then maybe we get serious. Host what about the governmentsponsored program to encourage this kind of thing . Guest ive been back and forth on that. What if we require some Public Service when you get out of school and ive been thinking about it because it brings people of diverse backgrounds they say the military has done more to integrate because you have people with different backgrounds and races and Family Income and they come together and they learn to get along. Host im smiling because i thought about that too. You require everybody to take a year to do some form of Public Service or some other service and it would be an enormously good thing and i think it works in countries like israel, obviously smaller countries easier to do that i but that isa positive way because we do need to think about how we get these young people to find a way to make a difference. Guest i think they are thinking about this because they sold their parents chase the almighty buck and theres nothing wrong with wanting to be wealthy but if it is to chase without a value, i saw this as i dont want that i want something more meaningful than that and that is the cause for optimism and they are more open to ideas. By and large they are more objective and they can listen better. Host what would you say were the greatest takeaways and you did more town Hall Meetings than anybody else has ever done guest people in my opinion of the town halls were there because they wanted to believe somebody cared about them. It was more of the heart and soul then it was over the head. I was telling the listeners i took up swimming after the olympics because i wanted to look like these guys that failed. But in the course of swimming, i dropped my cell phone in the Swimming Pool and i got the phone because i wasnt very good at swimming. I went to the Verizon Store and they made me wait a couple hours and they finally gave me the phone and they said this is free we made you wait too long. I was flabbergasted. The lady in charge said to me last week a woman came in here with a smart phone. We have done something to break it. We fixed it, gave it back to her and said what dubai over and i said you dont own us anything. She said the woman started to cry and get emotional and said nobody ever treats anybody like that anymore. So to me, this is part of the issue that we need to learn to put ourselves in other peoples shoes and i learned that is what other people want to do. They want somebody to celebrate their victories and to understand their pain and slow down. I am moved so fast that i get reminded from time to time to just slow down he always slowed down when somebody needed something. He said if he could slow down to take care of people why cant you. I read that and i said you know what, that is absolutely right. So, to take one more minute with somebody, and im not good at it but i try and get my better days i slow down. Isnt it interesting, that is what people want to give them a smile and a hug and not think that they are out there all along. Host what bothered me from the getgo was the language used and the fear factors that were encouraged creative separation that is hard to bridge against so what can we do sitting on the outside to try to bridge what we have in the administration. He is training people and getting them back to work in helping them get a place to sleep and all that. I gave them an award. I gave a judge and award. This guy was driving a bus and was on a bridge and saw a woman getting ready to jump off the bridge distracted her and said to her i think maybe you need a hug and in the process. They had a camera on the bus and the film went viral. I think we have to honor these people that say i am going to work at this because we are not going to unravel this overnight. Do you count on those politicians in washington to fix this . Over time we can start to see the leaders emerge again and i would like to be part of it whether i am in or out. Host you will be part of that that isnt mucit that isna question. You talk in the book using an example building that Holocaust Memorial and you talk about how keating had something. I thought to myself do we have to be thinking about this when they understand that the holocaust was and who the people were and what happens when people let evil takeover and participate in some respects some of them that did so i got up to speak and announced he we will have a Holocaust Memorial in capital. It is provided by one of the worlds greatest architects. Last week a group came eighth, ninth, tenth, 11th, 12th grade. I was getting ready to go on a tour and i wanted to be in ohio to do one more big thing before i left. In the course of my talking to him, the kid fainted and we had a moved so we walked from the front of the statehouse over to the Holocaust Memorial. I got off on one of the walls and i talked to those kids about what this memorial was all about. I said you need to go and read what happened here and understand, i said you see that thing that is present and if you save one life you save the world. All those groups should be there because what it is as inspiring. If you think of something, fight for it to get it done. Youve done all your lifetime. And you got to the point you were willing to give up big things because it violated your principles. Why do you think i like you. Host i think one of the lessons we have learned and at least when i was at the National Governors association you didnt know if the person next to you was republican or democrat, it doesnt matter and now i gather that has gotten much more political. Guest its become infected between governors. Im not even a member of the National Governors association because i dont go to meetings where nothing gets done and all i see is no serious Work Together. Im trying to do a little bit with democratic governors on healthcare. And we will see how far i can get on that because we do need Health Care Reform but we cant just cut millions of people off and not give them the care they need. So it has become unfortunately a lot more political and not good. Host its a shame. My staff wasnt always happy when i went because i would come back with a list of things we should try and it made sense but see how we make it work in new jersey. Guest i havent sent any of this during the talk but the governor of connecticut that isnt running, dan malloy, the first time i met him i was in the white house with president obama and e. And i sat together and it was not very pleasant. It started to rain and he gave me his raincoat. He said i dont want you to get wet, governor, take this. I want you to be dry. I know youre not listening that somebody is and they will tell you, thanks for that raincoat has made a difference. Thats what we need to have. Its not like everybody wants to fight but we need to honor those that step up. Guest host we need to say i love my party but im not going to vote on the party line on this because it is wrong. Guest i am not supporting any more candidates including in my party if they are not going to be positive. If youre going to be divisive and negative and down in the ditch, im not supporting them. Host did you have any kind of a pledge or standard . Guest its okay if you run a comparison. There were some that i didnt like and i couldnt call them or talk to them but i did an interview and said i dont like that add so it is a little different now. We are at the tail end of our trip here. Its easier to pontificate. But i think that we have conducted ourselves. Selfcongratulatory that is the last thing people want to hear. Host you talk about where you were brought up and how you were brought up. Guest my mother had a lot of the traits that i had. She was one of those lets just tell it like it is. Now you are a refined lady. I come from a very sort of ethnic bluecollar. We were more loud about it. My mother was something else. God bless her, she saw something she didnt like she didnt care where she was, she would speak out about it. She would say tell it like it is. There is an element of that, thats why i would call myself a populist republican and stick up for people that dont always get stuck up for. The book i read when i was in college said if you want to understand president , go back and look at their mothers and fathers and impact on them. Who gave you your drive, was it your father or mother or both . It was both. My father knew everybodys business and everybodys neighborhood and had a big smile on his face, so id like to think that i am a combination of both of them. Earlier in my career i was more strident and now i am a little more settled down. Im not sure my wife would agree with that. Host well, sure. Thats why its now its now at more about their spouses than they might like. A question for you. Early on, you started to get interested in policy and what was happening. Not so much the politics of policy that you were willing to get outside of your comfort zone and you were pressing to meet with president nixon. That was a fun story. Guest i was a College Student and there were some things that upset me in the ohio state so i asked for a meeting with the president of the university and this struggle i went to see him and i told him i was concerned and i looked at him and said ive been in school a couple of weeks. I dont know what i want to be that when i look at this office you have and desk and chairs maybe this is a job for me what do you do and he said i have academic responsibilities and fundraising responsibilities but im going to go down and see president nixon. I wrote a letter and told them how i thought it was positive, gave it to the president of the university, he carried her to washington and i wrote if you want to discuss this further, let me know. A couple weeks later i get a letter back from the white house from the president and he invited me to the oval office to have a chat with him. I said im going to need an Airline Ticket at the president would like to have a meeting with me in the oval office and my mother shouting because the phone theres something wrong with our kid. And i did fly down and get to see president nixon and they gave me 20 minutes. I dont think most things have been by accident, they tend to have this on purpose. I am a work in progress, governor. Thats when good things have been coming q. Got to just be appreciative and dont a lot of good things have happened to me in my lifetime and i really appreciate the fact that i have a pretty dumb and an opportunity to speak. This is my fourth book. People say what are you proud of, my marriage, my daughters, all of that. Hopefully this one is going to do well. I think it is a good one and im really happy about it. Host how comfortable were you talking about it on the campaign trail and what about peoples reactions. When i was a little boy i was worried when my father went to pick my mother up in her job in downtown pittsburgh but they wouldnt come back because they would go on a very dangerous road. Then they got to be 35yearsold and i got a call at 11 45 at night and they said i have terrible news for you, your father has been in a terrible accident, your father is dead and your mother is going to die. I got to pittsburgh that night and the girl i was going with drove me there. I went into the hospital and my mother never regained consciousness. There was a young minister who started telling me about face and said im so sorry. Started yelling at this guy can do for the next couple of weeks he started asking me about my position. He said to me one day you dont understand. You are going to heal. It was very legitimate, but i drifted away. So i Read Everything i could. I disrupted more religious studies groups than you could ever imagine and on the way i concluded there is a god that he cares about me and he is transcending. And here is the thing where i think religion has gone wrong. You have the leaders that play politics and shouldnt be endorsing candidates. This is nonsense. Second, a lot of them preach. To become the religion is about hope, a second chance, a chance to brush yourself off and start new. If i knew somebody that cares about me that is transcendent and i know a little bit about what is expected i have a better chance of hitting the mark than if im just wandering around without a compass. But its my gift to people, just check it out and if you dont like it, fine. I just wanted you to know what i found and its not always right for me. It doesnt take away all the pain or make life. But in a Mature Society there is a tendency for man to put himself on the throne and take got off the throne and in that process we become self absorbed and we lose our objectivity and then all of a sudden it is a subjective judgment about proper behavior. I dont buy that. If you are a humanist and want to yield of the world that is consistent with those that practice faith. If i said im going to tell you about golf, there are sand traps and water hazards and if you move the ball its a penalty. Into the penalty. I said lets go play isnt this great or if i say to you golf is about the outdoors, the ball against the horizon you say i might want to try that so we shouldnt so the rules of religion we should solve the hope of it and that is what i try to do a little bit. Host you certainly do it in the book and it is a powerful message. You can either take it or leave it. Its up to you how you think about it. But it is troubling to me to see how many kind of imposed themselves in the political process. And that paints at all. Host guest their job is to feed the hungry and clothe the poor. Martin luther said it is up to those people in religion to give values and its up to the people to decide who the leaders ought to be. It isnt up to the people picking the leaders people wont like what im saying but think about what i said. What have your daughter is taken away from it and i know that you have a letter to them, but the letter. She quoted doctor seuss and said for those that matter, they dont care about my position and those that care dont matter. It was an astounding and a stunning email that my daughter sent to me. For my daughter politics isnt hurting. This is simply talk about. I dont talk to my wife about this unless i have something that is really bothering me. Shes insisted they dont go into the home with my phone and keep distracted. Host one of the things i insisted on as we would go away for a week, higher a day and go around the National Parks. When they were together doing something as a family. Ive not found a job to be complicated or hard. At the moment its tough but if you are not playing politics coming kind of make decisions to move on. I took my daughter on some trips privately just two of us and the scum of the same way. My wife and i just celebrated our wedding anniversary and left the kids at home with somebody to watch over them and by christmas we already have a place we are going to stay in florida. The dinner doesnt last long, but we are all there. I have a little bit of something i have to take care of when i get home but all in all, its good. Shes concerned abou about in 18 months i wont have this job and then im going to be around a lot more. You dont want to be successful and ignore your kids or spouse. Now that theyre 17 and they are beautiful and smart girls she said how many do you know that want to come over as a state trooper sitting in the driveway with a gun. I live a very normal life. I around town, so im not really kind of isolated. I live a normal, a pretty normal life and i think that has been really healthy for our family. Host did you do a lot of trade missions as governor . Guest . And of course i meant Business Leaders in germany and also in london. Im probably going to do some more but i dont just want to go and do something if it isnt going to make sense and i cant have some success. Its interesting over the next year and a half i will do a little bit more. Host how much time did you spend bringing yourself up to date on what is happening . Guest even on the tour im on thbooktour im on the phone y for a long time with staff i stay in constant communication and they are good at reaching out and telling me. I did a lot of work before i left for the trip for the year or so ago i was gone i would sneak back as often as i could. Its a juxtaposition to do that than once as you are running for president there are broad issues you dont have to worry about so much as the governor, the international theme. But tell me a little bit about your experience as a congressm congressman. You were responsible for some pretty major pieces of legislation. Tell me how that helped inform you before you ran for governor and in the president ial race because it seemed to me it was brought about from that race. Host i served for the 18 years i was there in from the first i think it was six years. I went to africa and that was a little different. But as a part of the National Security used foreign aid effectively and it leverage to br. We went to panama on el salvad salvador. It kind of allowed me to look at the world and the threat and developed a way that i think about how we intervene and dont intervene. There were only a handful and it is about a month or two after that when the barracks were blown u out and i learned a valuable lesson about being in the middle of the civil war. That was a great opportunity to learn about the site of the country that i didnt want to go on any other committees. Barry goldwater, people they wont know, all these great folks and then in the house, those that served on world war ii that were amazing people, conservative democrats that i know and loved. Hyou remember the secretary of defense, he was a brilliant thinker. And it is the time when republicans and democrats there was no difference because we were all out to defeat accompanists. Then i did the budget and i understood the pentagon reform and the whole thing. It was kind of an iconoclast because i was one of the people that found the hammers and screwdrivers and said we should reform the pentagon likely reform the welfare system. Then i worked with a very liberal democrat to reduce the procurement of the bomber which i thought we didnt really need in the middle of a nuclear war and his job was to fly in the soviet union and drop into the war. We dont need as many of the planes to do that so i wanted to build a standoff weapons and the limited production and that carried over to my work on the budget committee. There was an incident i wanted to come and control the growth of Pentagon Spending and i was in a meeting with the leadership and someone accused me of being a traitor to the country. I dont know what possessed me that i looked at him and said you dont have to call. He looked at me and said what do you mean and i said you are already forgiven by knowing the middle of the money you will want to apologize but please dont call because i will be sleeping and you are already forgiven. The whole room just went dead still which was really cool. Host thats terrific one of those things where you think of the right thing at the right time. Host when you decided to leave new jersey was that hard for you . Host it was and it wasnt. In new jersey because the governor has so much power constitutionally is one of the most powerful, nobody cares what youre doing they are just looking at who is going to be the next governor so what you are doing is walking in your legacy which i should have stayed around and become a little bit more of. But its awfully hard when a president elect calls, welcome heated into the president elect and says what would you serve the country. The epa wasnt my first choice. Guest what would you have liked to have done . Host United Nations or commerce. Ive done a lot of International Work as governor and i thought i could be helpful there but i am prochoice and the United Nations made some decisions and gives money to programs that help women make decisions on how to do so that wasnt going to work. But the epa is an important position and i learned a lot and came to respect the men and women that work so hard and was therefore 9 11 which was really challenging. Then the challenger and anthrax nobody remembers that, cleaning up that office building. So it was good but it was tough to leave new jersey. Guest back in my old role as a tv host, i want to ask you when you hear about the issue of Climate Change and the environment, what goes through your mind . It seems it is a controversial subject but how do you respond it is more so now, you think it is more controversial now. Host it boggles my mind that republicans are responding the way they are because it is such a republican issue. It starts with conservative and when you look at the first president we all know Teddy Roosevelt what he did with the National Park service and Richard Nixon who established the Environmental Protection agency and back to your point of people working together the interesting thing is as we remember, none of the audience will remember back to 1970 but in 69 and 70, we have any of the riots on the college campuses, kids killedin a city is burning up race riots and it wasnt because congress stopped suddenly we have Nothing Better to do was go after the environment, is because the public said enough. We dont like reverse spontaneously combusting. Guest heres a perfect example again of bottomup. Host exactly. People have to get engaged that way. One thing i want to ask you before we finish, and you have been flat out running, its been tough, and writing a book. Have you had the time to read much and what books attract your attention . Attention . Guest i finished a great book called the boys in the bo boat. Its wonderful, its really an incredible book and now im reading the guns of august about world war i. You would think i have read that book that i havent. I read a fiction book i thought was terrific by joe klein in new york its called all the light you cannot see and that is another amazing book. I do read, a lot of philosophy and frankly spiritual philosop philosophy, but my wife reads almost wonderful weekend she just finished the book roosevelts last battle, the story of the last years and i am so proud of her she is a voracious reader and she will give me the things i think she would really enjoy so what i do is i absorbing with information every day with my ipad and i read magazines, too. I wish the new yorker stories could be longer. But i absorbing a lot of information. I probably will do a lot more reading. Host one is called three days in january and its about the transition between eisenhower and kennedy and what makes the book so powerful right now particularly as the concern of Nuclear Weapons that were an issue, the cuban missile crisis happened right after that transition, and his concerned about ensuring that you have civilian control over the military. A fivestar general, and theres a lot that translates. The other again is about eisenhower and its the time during the crisis and the first time that weve really got involved in the middle east and the mistakes that we made. Very informational books but i want to ask you let me give you one more i read that was one of the best ive read in a long time and thats the book on the right brothers. All these people from North Carolina all you have is a bunch of sand and wind in tikrit into the airplane in ohio, so National Title or not, we claim aviation, not you. Host youre going to get some pushback on that im sure. But i was going to ask what newspapers you read . Guest the new york times, usa today, the wall street journal, i look at times, the atlantic magazine, sometimes i will look at the daily beast. I read a whole panoply and then i get clips sent int in to me. I look at cbs cnn, fox websites, the bbc. Its a lot of stuff. I walked in here with a guy from spain and i congratulated him on the victory and he was really happy and i said there is a great golfer and he puts it on the green. He said i missed, i messed, i made. She didnt get the ball back exactly right. As bad as it was that she didnt win the tournament, shes now a household name. This is unbelievable that somebody is looking at the things like this. And you know what people are saying theres a revolution in the gulf war. The role is critical but lets not begin that. Host just two extra strokes the next day for signing the card when nobody knew. Guest i saw a foul in the North Carolina game and they needed to play the game over so anyway we will lose them all if we keep talking. The potential is so great we dont want to regulate, but guest its hard because somebody said there was fake news put out about the. Is so outrageous and then i found out somebody added it to wikipedia. We need to go and take it down and correct it. People can do hit jobs on the thing and thats why they will be discerning when they read. Believe none of what you read and only half of what you see, that is not a bad philosophy. Host that is a good way to get through but it is a challenge now and people get so much information. If you read the new york times, read the wall street journal. If you watch fox news, watch msnbc or im with you, the bbc is the most sort of in the middle. But the truth is in the middle of those and thats what people have to get to that requires thinking. Guest it also says now we are beginning to see people who are fighting back online against stories that are not true. Host talking to professors at the University One of the things they have to do is teach kids about plagiarism because they take it off the internet and think i dont have to cite this because it is on the internet. And also believing everything they get from wikipedia an in ay of those sites. Guest we have a few minutes left. Our Education System, k12 and Higher Education if they dont get their act together and start educating people with the skills for the jobs of the future they are going to be the center mediated and there will be Technological Solutions for giving people skills that are fit for the kind of things they have passion for it right now the Education System is operating based on a 100 year ago philosophy. At the universitys costs too much. Theres not enough being done to bring in the cost to get them back to the core function they owed to many assets. This revolution is coming as i mentioned earlier about driving and the use of sand and Artificial Intelligence. They would lose their jobs because of Artificial Intelligence and we see these commercials with edison where they give an answer. We are joined at the hip. Host we have to wrap up that i want to thank you its been good fun
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